Giraffes for Wings - Impact Winter

from SpinTunes 22 Round 1 by Spintunes

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about

When I moved back home to Indiana in 2018, Jackie Walorski was serving as my representative in Congress, which she did until her untimely death in a car crash in 2022. During that time, I had a combative relationship with her local and DC offices, making countless phone calls and meeting with her chief of staff about her mindless fealty to Donald Trump. Her death was a tragedy, but still, I had a hard time feeling anything about it.

For me, Walorski’s MAGA politics are tied up inextricably with my mother, who in her delusions, sees herself as an essential “digital soldier” for Trump, bravely advancing her glorious cause by sharing racist and transphobic memes on Truth Social.

I also thought there was an interesting parallel between Walorski’s manner of death and what my mom always told me as a child would be her preferred method of suicide.

So I wrote a song about both of them. Thanks for listening!

lyrics

I watched Jackie Walorski’s funeral procession drive past my school
It was bright and cool
Hundreds of friends and families and police and supporters and a hearse
There was a dry, windy desert in my heart
There was nothing in hers

My mother taught me to bank on your tormentors dying
And then life will be fine
But when Tucker and Donald and his stupid kids are all gone
The gutters are gonna swell over
With cheap hangers-on

I keep trying to write songs about how beautiful and good and dignified
All people are inside
And end up writing about you saying you’d slam your car into a pole and we’d be all right
There’s no weather down in a coal mine
So there’s nothing in your heart
It’s an impact winter in mine

credits

from SpinTunes 22 Round 1, released March 12, 2024

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Spintunes Union, South Carolina

Spintunes is a semi-annual songwriting contest. Every other week, the competitors receive a challenge and a week to meet it.

Each album on this site contains the responses to a single challenge.